Back to Chapter Twelve - Whitsunday Sailing Chapter Thirteen
Murray River Houseboats
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Chapter Thirteen Murray River Houseboats |
The next boat we chartered was pretty hard to miss no matter where you left it, day or night. It was a houseboat, twenty metres long by about eight metres wide. This was on the Murray River, Australia´s largest. Most of this holiday was spent on the South Australian part of the Murray near the borders with Victoria and New South Wales. For company this time we had Danny and Penny. Danny is one of Eileen´s brothers.
It started with another driving trip heading south. Along the way we stopped at the Western Plains Zoo, near Dubbo, New South Wales, and then the border town of Echuca. The main feature of Echuca is the riverfront. Paddle steamers from a bygone era still ply the water for the tourists. The massive timber riverside wharf and most of the nearby buildings have been restored for safety reasons, and to provide some modern conveniences, but otherwise it is a living, functioning, museum town. One of the buildings was a ´sly´ grog shop. It has an underground bar and escape tunnel.
At more than ten metres, the wharf has to be that high because that is the variation in water levels between wet and dry times. It is 75 metres long, but used to be five times that length. We stayed at the Steam Packet Inn. The name says it all. All the old world charm you need.
Heading west and basically following the Murray River, we were in familiar territory. Swan Hill had so impressed Eileen and I twenty-three years ago that we wanted to see how it had developed. Sadly it was not as vibrant as on our first visit. In the 70s these living museum towns were very popular. By the 90s, entertainment like this had to be very special to keep the tourists coming back. Swan Hill´s pioneer town was struggling.
After a short stop we drove on, and for the first time Eileen and I were in the state of South Australia. In 1829 Captain Charles Sturt was assigned to solve the great mystery of why so many rivers flowed westward from the Great Dividing Range, and where did they finish. He was looking for a suspected inland sea. He rowed a whaleboat down the Murrumbidgee River, which ran into the Murray. He followed the Murray until he reached its mouth at Lake Alexandrina in 1830. 360 sq km Lake Alexandrina empties into the Southern Ocean.
We boarded our floating home near Renmark and went for a test drive. We didn´t hit anything, and no ski boats hit us, and after we proved we could nose this behemoth back into the riverbank, she was ours. We had booked this particular houseboat because despite her size she had only three cabins. The rest was living area. In front of the house bit was a huge BBQ patio. On both sides was a walkway, and at the stern was another patio with a boarding ladder. It was the biggest centre console fishing boat I had ever seen.
Twice a day the Paringa lifting span bridge is raised to accommodate river traffic. We were one in the queue heading upstream. We left behind the camping grounds, ski boats, shops, small factories, and other signs of civilization, and motored off into the semi-wilderness. We usually take holidays while schools are in, so we saw only a few other houseboats. Mostly all we saw moving were birds, including Whistling Kites and Swamphens. That evening we nosed the boat into a spot on the riverbank between two suitably spaced trees that looked large enough to hold us. We took port and starboard bowlines to each tree and tied them securely. This is the accepted method of ´anchoring´, and every houseboat does it. We tried some unproductive fishing before getting an early nights sleep.
Next day we passed several homesteads, but saw no signs of life. Neither was there any near a historical aboriginal campsite. Red dirt cliffs towered some 30 metres above the river. At one place there was a climbing track that led to a lookout shelter at the top. None of us felt like playing mountain goat. Besides, the views from the boat were spectacular enough.
There are several locks along the Murray to assist with the irrigation scheme. The river can dry to puddles during prolonged seasons of drought, so these locks keep an allotted amount of water back. We navigated Lock 6. All the locks are of a similar design with a barrage across most of the river, and the lock proper against one bank. Three long blasts of the horn alert the lockkeeper, unless it´s his lunch hour, when you will be ignored.
The enclosure of the lock was as long as about three of our houseboats. We were the only one to enter for the 2 to 3 metre rise. When the gates had swung open we edged inside and passed mooring lines up to the lockkeeper. The gates closed behind us and the water started to rise. A few minutes later and we were at the same level as the waters upstream. With plenty of available water, and a lot of spare time, the lockkeeper´s wife had a lush green lawn, and a beautiful and expansive garden. The gates in front of us swung open, and we were on our way again.
We passed weeping willows and several more homesteads. There was what appeared to be a beautiful privately owned houseboat tied up near one of the homesteads. We nosed in near the old customs house at Elura, which is now a riverbank store. This was our anchorage for tonight. At last we were catching some fish. A yellowbelly and several carp. Satisfied, we went to sleep, musically accompanied by a chorus of croaking frogs.
Next day we crossed the South Australia/Victorian border on the southern bank. There must have been some belligerent politicians, or some very bad surveyors, when the three-state borders were drawn up. It was some time later before we crossed the South Australia/New South Wales border on the other bank.
Then the river became very shallow at its naturally widest point. We had to take a detour through a narrow channel, but with fearless Cap´n Dan at the wheel, we made it safely. Later we saw the pelicans on the sandbanks where we would have tried to go if we had not paid attention to the chart.
A few hours later we passed the old Cal Lal police station ruins. There were now cabins for what appeared to be holiday accommodation, and a picnic area with deck chairs. A little further upstream is the area known as Lindsay Cliffs. This was one of the prettiest places we saw on the river. There was a sandy beach, picnic table, lovely views, and an eagle for entertainment.
The last homestead we encountered before we began our return trip was Old Warrakoo Station. A community justice program managed by the Mildura Aboriginal Corporation now provides aboriginal youth and adult offenders with basic life skills training, and work skills, on a farm, as an alternative to imprisonment.
This was not a one-way trip, so we had to return the houseboat to Renmark and collect our car. Even by following the most direct route home it was still a two-day road trip. The journey home after a holiday is always a bit sad. We would have been much more excited if we knew then what we would be doing next year.
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